This also echoes what bill said: And so is everything/everywhere else in the Universe.

There was no intention of invoking quantum entanglement here.

At risk of trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, I’ll use the balloon analogy to show how I understand the situation.

Imagine an uninflated balloon on which you mark a small dot. As you inflate the balloon, the dot grows. Now, ask yourself where, within that enlarged patch, you might find your original mark. Obviously, the answer must be “everywhere”. The same can be said of the Big Bang. At the instant of “creation” it encompassed the entire Universe, and as the Universe has expanded it has continued to do that; it has not left behind some original Big Bang site.

Having said, and perhaps accepted, all this; if we return to the balloon analogy, there must always be a feeling that because the mark expanded evenly in every direction from the centre, that must be its spreading centre. I suspect that it is this feeling, rather than an inability to accept that the Big Bang happened everywhere, that is the hitch-hiker’s chief difficulty. Obviously your original dot has expanded, but has it spread across the balloon? The answer has to be “no”, because the material of the balloon has expanded, carrying your mark with it. It is tempting to think that your spot was made in the centre of the extended mark, but such is not the reality, either in the case of your dot, or the Universe.

Pop Sci books, and even experts, talk about BH singularities as though they were objects that physically exist. For us hitch-hikers it is important to remember that this can easily be misleading.

I have quoted Chris Baird on this subject before, but I think the point is worth stressing.

Quote from: C Baird

In the real universe, no black holes contain singularities. In general, singularities are the non-physical mathematical result of a flawed physical theory. When scientists talk about black hole singularities, they are talking about the errors that appear in our current theories and not about objects that actually exist. When scientists and non-scientists talk about singularities as if they really exist, they are simply displaying their ignorance.

A singularity is a point in space where there is a mass with infinite density. This would lead to a spacetime with an infinite curvature. Singularities are predicted to exist in black holes by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which is a theory that has done remarkably well at matching experimental results. The problem is that infinities never exist in the real world. Whenever an infinity pops out of a theory, it is simply a sign that your theory is too simple to handle extreme cases.

My understanding is that if such a micro black hole were artificially produced, it would spontaneously evaporate, so it would be identifiable only by its "residue".

I know very little about it, but I believe extra dimensions of space would be required in order to produce micro black holes with our current technology; so it may be a long time before a physical example is produced.

My argument has been though changing the idea of time "could" bring significance to the golden best tool we have, as yet, discovered with which we can gain understanding of the Universe. If the “golden ratio” helps with our understanding, so well and good, but let’s not try to read anything causative into that. ratio, especially if an algorithm for time represented the golden ratio.

Ever since philosophers, and later scientists, realised that the best tool they had for describing the Universe, was mathematics there has, in my opinion, been a tendency to interpret this as saying that the Universe was based on mathematics. This must flirt with the ideas of intelligent design.

This implies that the field should be considered as independent of the force carrier.

Thinking about this raises some questions in my mind.

Popular explanations of gravity, according to GR, tend to follow this pattern:

1) Visualise empty space (spacetime?).2) Introduce a mass.3) The mass causes spacetime to warp.4) The warping of spacetime = gravity.The question this seems to leave open is: What is the source of the energy that warps spacetime?

Perhaps there is another way to look at it.

1-2) As above.3) The mass gives rise to gravitational force (GF).4) This GF is best described (mathematically) in terms of spacetime curvature.The wording of the question in the first scenario may change, but the question remains unanswered. Three other questions must be added.1) Is spacetime actually curved?2) What would curved spacetime look like?3) Is what we describe as curvature simply the imposition of directionality on spacetime?